Martha’s Worship Wednesday Bible Quote

Love this quote!  To me it defines faith so clearly!  For faith does not ask “why, Lord?” Instead, it says “send me.”

Ecclesiastes 11:5

⁵ As you do not know the path of the wind,
or how the body is formed^[a] in a mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
the Maker of all things.

Who Do YOU Think You Are?

It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.- Dale Carnegie

These words from Carnegie are so very true!  We were created for so much more than we know and what or whom we reflect, how we live our lives, is so strongly associated with our thoughts.   I had a driving instructor tell me “where you look is where you’ll head.  Well, in a related concept, our thoughts become our focus.  What better reason can we have for focusing on the love of Jesus?

Choose to live authentically!

Get Up!

 

Awakening – A Tanka

Day changes to night

And then night returns to day.

Wide-eyed, I wonder . . .

Has anything really changed,

Or only my perspective?

By Martha L Shaw – © 5-9-2013

*

Psalm 139:12

¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

Jesus Loves Caterpillars!

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly. –  Buckminster Fuller

When I grow up, I will be a butterfly, but Jesus can already and only see me as a butterfly right this minute!

Today Is Not Better But I AM

Did you ever notice that when you’re out of focus, it seems that this is the very time when those closest to you are in BAD moods, are of a mind to point out ALL of your flaws – real or imagined – and just when you find a quiet place and time to get those eyes fixed on Jesus again .   . . every telemarketer on earth suddenly calls you?  Yesterday was one of those “where am I going” kind of days and when the unrest externally quieted some and I found my way to my prayer chair, each time I sat down the phone rang again.  Worse yet, most of the sales calls were prerecorded “press one.”  Grrrr.

I must say, though, that as annoying as the calls were, my annoyance was blown a bit out of proportion by the fact that someone close to me was ranting and raving.  Know what?  It is no accident thst when our focus slips from Him that those closest to us are suddenly on the attack. Peeps, if a stranger grumbles at you, it doesn’t generally break your spirit, but when someone you love grumbled IT SURE DOES.  The evil one knows this and uses it!  So, yesterday . .  .

A beautiful day of sun and blue skies and one of which poems are written, paintings painted . . . but not by me.  I admit, I just couldn’t get my mind to switch over to what my heart and soul knew.  Prayer was more of a gripe fest, quiet time wasn’t quiet . . . so I cleaned, yup.  Not everything I cleaned was in need, but I needed something to keep me busy and something mindless.  As I sorted out my fabric stash (I am a quilter) I found my WIP collection.

Work in progress .  . . as a Christian I am His WIP and as a quilter with a large stash of WIP projects, I am reminded of what a good thing it is that He is the Lord and I am not because His WIP pile is bigger than mine just from the lessons He is teaching me alone.  But surrendering that, I flipped through scraps and bolts and quilt tops and found one small enough to finish and simple enough to “get it right” in my mindless state.  It didn’t occur to me until this morning that He was speaking to me lovingly the whole time, nor did I realize at the time that even yesterday, the birds still sang and the flowers, kisses from God to me, were still in bloom.  I just focused on the thread and the fabric.  With blurry eyes, He enabled me to thread the needle . .  . y’all know how hugely He speaks to me through nature.  So, here are some pictures of the Light of Christ Garden Table Top Quilt.  Today, the weather is gloomy and threatens to be really bad, but I woke up singing the words to Isaiah 60:1

 “Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.

Rejoice Always – A Bible Quote For Today!

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV

Live You Passion? – Quote For Monday

Passion . . . that which is powerful and compelling.  It is my firm belief that true passion can only come from the Lord.  There is a Hebrew word Oin’ah meaning zeal for God.  Yes!  Wow, it describes how I feel about writing and speaking about Him with you and why I hunger to serve Him more and more with every breath!  Has He given you a passion for life?  I believe He blesses all of us in this way, though we can sometimes  wander the path a while before knowing this.  I did.  Then, for some of us, there is a question of how to live our lives in a practical way out of this passion.  He will show us the way.  I know He will in His time. Picasso knew this.

“Everything you can imagine is real.”  Pablo Picasso

 

 

Is God A Stranger?

Yes, you read that correctly.  Is God a stranger?  My heart and soul says a loud NO, but read this quote:

Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don’t know and trusting them with your life.

- Paul Theroux -

Now, the most important question of all . . . why is it so often easier for us to believe in and trust strangers than God Himself?  We do trust strangers with our lives everyday.  Do we trust Him less? Equally?  Far, far more than these?

 

 

Is Being Sensible Working For You?

I come from a long line of sensible people.  Church going folks.  I always assumed the two concepts go hand-in-hand.  You know what?  I can’t say I’ve ever found the word sensible in the Bible.  Okay, so I decided I needed to look that up and since cyberspace provides worlds of opportunity I can tell you that one quick click revealed that the word appears just twice in the entire Bible.  Twice!  So, since my “sensible” approach to life is no longer working and since it seems the Lord has crazy and amazing (though not entirely defined yet) plans for me, I’m thinking that with just two uses of the word “sensible” that’s not much of an endorsement for MY PLAN.  Well, as it happens my sensible approach is no longer working anyway . . . so it’s time to totally trust in the Lord.

Trust.  I don’t like that word.  When people say “trust me” it usually means “I know you’re not going to like this, but . . . “  You know, it’s not unlike those times someone has tried to get me to taste something I thought looked “funny” and they wouldn’t tell me what it was, but said it “tastes like chicken.”  Well, the only thing I care to consume that tastes like chicken is chicken.  Seriously.  So, back to trusting.  Not a fan of trusting humans.  Experience hasn’t changed my thoughts on that, but trusting in the Lord . . . hmmm.  So, back to my Bible research.  As it happens, my results for “trust” were quite a bit different compared to my research on “sensible.”  That word appears 164 times.  Okay, that’s an improvement of about 98.5 percent!

So, I’m going with trust.  I’m listening to the Lord.  Seems I’m not the only one in favor of throwing out sensible in favor of something better.  Here are a few related opinions on a different approach to life.

“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of
choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing
to be achieved.”
–  Jeremy Kitson

“In each of us are places where we have never gone. Only
by pressing the limits do you ever find them.”
–  Dr. Joyce Brothers

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by
the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Discover.”
–  Mark Twain

But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.”

–Psalm 31:14